I know the answer is “as soon as possible to get some experiences,” but when is it the most common time for college students? Especially ones who want to go into business? Summer before (freshman/soph/junior/senior) year?
I’m asking it because I have a “guaranteed transfer option” to Cornell my sophomore year, and I’m stuck between where to go my freshman year: Binghamton or Community College.
Ideally, I want to get a good internship during the summer of a rising sophomore, but that would extremely hard if I went to a community college my first year to save money.
For business, they typically want you to be a junior or senior depending on where you want to intern and what degree. It’s essentially their way of recruiting for entry-level positions so you probably won’t get one being a rising sophomore because businesses don’t want to wait that long. At least, that’s what my advisers told me.
It really depends on the field you are going into. Some industries recruit rising sophomores for internships - these internships would be about learning the ropes and there would be no expectation of returning in future years, with the understanding that they will benefit from other companies in that industry. The majority, however, don’t really look for anyone who they would not be able to extend a full time offer to at the end of the internship period, so that means rising seniors.
Something to be cautious about is scams. There are plenty of scammers out there who prey on ambitious college students. Case in point: During my freshman year I struggled to find an internship; I applied to dozens of places with no luck, but then I found this placement service that said most interns make $15/hr or more. I didn’t even question it before I signed up… They brought me in for an interview. When I got there, the office was tiny and smelled like someone had used Febreeze to cover the stench of mold; it looked like the office had just been set up a few days prior. The people spent the majority of the time selling the “program” and, after the “interview” was over, I went home. They strung me along for a while, claiming that they had something and would get back to me next week… during this time I turned down an unpaid government internship (which is consistently regarded as an excellent program). Finally, I got a call from placement company. They had found a company (they didn’t mention who the company was or what they did) that would pay me $15/hr, but I needed to pay the company a program fee of $7,500 up front. When I hesitated, the phone call ended and I never heard from them again.
The moral of the story is to feel free to be ambitious, but be cautious, especially as a younger applicant!